Greatly Improve Your Riding

“This was by far the best use of both money and time in regards to my mountain bike training. Its 3 days of my life I will never forget.” – Jim, BetterRide Camper

BetterRide Mountain Bike Skills Coaching, Camps and Clinics have been designed to teach you how to ride faster, more efficient, balanced, in control and of course how to have more fun! Are you ready to create a BetterRide?, come join us.

What You Will Learn

Spend a three day weekend with us and we will teach you the physical and mental skills on how to ride balanced, efficiently, fast and smooth. We also be teach drills for each skill so you can practice after the camp and master these skills, ending the frustration of not riding to your potential.

First we teach you the goal of the skill and explain how to do it so you understand the skill, how to do it what it should feel like.

Coach Gene Hamilton explaining one component of cornering technique.

Then we demonstrate the skill, so you can see it done and know what it should look like.

Coach Gene Demonstrating how to practice one part of cornering body position.

Next we have you practice the skill using drills in a safe learning environment (so you don’t resort to old habits and/or survival instincts) while we encourage and assist you.

Students practicing cornering drill while Gene coaches.

Once you have a good understanding of the skill and some practice we apply the skill out on the trail.

Terry applying cornering technique in his camp in Bend, OR

Camp Overview

This is the most fun and informative mountain bike school you will ever attend

Starting in a safe learning environment we explain the skill, demonstrate the skill and have you practice the skill utilizing drills that you will continue to use long after the camp. Once you understand the skills we then apply them on the trail. Here at Better Ride we really enjoy helping others and would love to share these techniques and the drills with you so you can master the core skills.

Each day are camps start at 9:45 am with 3-4 hours of skills instruction and drills in a local park followed by 2-3 hours of on trail practice and riding on trail. A typical day runs from 9:45 am until 4:00 to 5:00 pm

Day 1

How to ride in balance, in control and efficiently. Learn correct body position, balance and weight placement for climbing and descending

How to look ahead correctly- Everyone one knows to look ahead but few actually do it! No matter how rough and rocky the trail you need to be looking ahead with both the trail and your goal in focus. This is easier said than done! We will teach you where and how to look ahead, how this effects your riding and how to improve your vision skills.

How to wheelie over small obstacles, up and down, efficient wheelies relying on technique, not upper body strength and how to use them over different obstacles

How to fall safer

Break for lunch and hit the trails to work on morning skills

Wrap up and reveiw of the days skills

Day 2

Review of day 1, questions?

How bikes corner, how to corner in balance, using vision to corner faster, easier with more control

Advanced cornering with drills

How to brake effectively (no skidding!)

how to use your brakes to go faster

How to start/restart on an uphill

Break for lunch and hit the trails to work on morning skills

Wrap up and review

Day 3

Review of both days and questions, review drills

How to balance on a bike, how to improve your balance, how to trackstand

How to do switch backs (up and down) in balance and in control with my 100% technique (as opposed to the popular momentum method that works well 50-60% of the time)

We have designed our mountain bike skills camps to help you with both the mental and physical sides of mountain biking. Our goal is to help you reach your potential by teaching you the core skills of mountain biking along with the drills to master them. These are the non-intuitive skills that eluded Gene Hamilton, Better Ride Head Coach after 15 years of riding and kept me from reaching my potential. Learning and becoming proficient at these skills will allow you to ride in balance and in control making you a more efficient and confident rider.

Our Camps are Perfect For You

When you take a Mountain Bike Skills Coaching Camp from BetterRide it is not uncommon to find yourself with a diverse group ranging from Pros to enthusiastic riders looking to take their riding to the next level. We teach everyone the same core skills. These core skills of mountain biking are not inherent and are not learned from experience. Sports are not learned by doing, they are learned by practicing core skills using drills. If sports were learned by doing top level professionals like Tiger Woods or Bode Miller would never have coaches, much less work with them on a daily basis throughout their careers.